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Repurposing Authentic Content

Creating unique and well-developed content is legitimately difficult. But while getting over that first hurdle is crucial, it is only the first step in fulfilling all your content creation goals.

Creating one great piece of content isn’t all that hard, especially if you have a content calendar and definitive strategy in place. Creating three or four pieces of content, however, is considerably more challenging. Distributing your content is the next step in your content journey, but often it can feel unsatisfying to put all that hard work in for that unique content, only to get to share it once. This is where content repurposing comes in and helps you continue the path of great content.

Repurposing content involves taking the initial work in creating content (whether it’s a blog post, video, podcast, whitepaper, etc.) and turning it into something else. It’s incredibly useful for brands that are trying to get their marketing to stretch farther, maximize their share of voice, and diversify their messaging.

Let’s think about your target customers. Are those personas readers or skimmers? Do you have both? Do they watch videos or prefer reading articles? In reality, you probably have some of both, so making sure your content is approachable for everyone – regardless of what their content preferences are – is imperative.

So if you know that you need to repurpose content and why you should make it a part of your marketing plan, how do you actually do it? The easiest way to explain content repurposing is by using examples. Some of the most common examples we see in marketing (and use in our own pieces) include:

  • Turning a series blog post statistics into a series of tweets
  • Transcribing a video or podcast for a blog post
  • Splitting a whitepaper into a blog series
  • Turning a blog post into a recipe on Pinterest
  • Taking photos from a blog post or content piece and using them on Instagram (but recropped or filtered)
  • Converting social media engagement into a case study
  • Making an event interactive with a Facebook Live, Instagram Live, or Twitter stream
  • Converting a blog post into a video or animated explainer
  • Turning a presentation into a Slideshare, then sharing it on social
  • Turning a blog series into an automated email campaign

The possibilities are endless when you start thinking about how you can take existing information and content and repurpose it for your users. There are many tools available online and offline that can help you repurpose your content to make it easier. Some of our favorites include:

  • Canva, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
  • Animoto, iMovie, Wistia, Vidyard, Vimeo
  • Piktochart, Powtoons, Venngage
  • Slideshare
  • Leadpages, Unbounce, Active Campaign
  • All social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Snapchat)
  • IFTTT, Zapier

Now that you have 1) written content; 2) repurposed your content, and 3) distributed it through various channels- you have one more step to take: Evaluate your results!

Don’t forget to evaluate your results every time you repurpose content to see which was most effective. Not everything will work the same, function the same, or be equally effective. If you aren’t measuring your results, then you aren’t making intentional choices in your marketing. Finish your content marketing journey with strong measurement metrics so you have real data that allows you to make informed decisions on additional marketing plans, ongoing campaigns, and the rest of your content journey.

What’s your favorite way to repurpose content in your marketing? Leave a comment and let us know!